It is known that a printed circuit board (PCB) connector provides a connectable interface between a PCB and another device with a complementary mating connector. A PCB connector may be mounted on a PCB in many ways; directly soldering the PCB connector to a copper-coated pad on a surface of the PCB (often referred to as surface mounting) is one of them.
A surface mount connector (usually a receptacle) typically include a housing with a mating face for mating with a complementary connector (usually a plug) and a board-mounting end from which a plurality of terminals exit the housing for termination to circuit traces on the PCB. The surface mount receptacle may further include a plurality of mounting posts at the base of the housing for the purpose of aiding the alignment of the surface mount receptacle to the PCB during mounting.
The terminals normally include mating portions for mating with the terminals of the complementary plug connector and tail portions (often known as ‘solder tails’) projecting from the housing for interconnection, as by soldering, to circuit traces on the PCB or in holes in the PCB into which the tails are inserted. The solder tails are typically arranged in a single row or coplanar rows for automated connection to the conductive pads on the PCB.
With the miniaturisation of electronic equipment, small-sized surface mount receptacles with very fine solder tails have been developed. This is because the footprint allocated for each internal component is reduced to accommodate the limited internal space within the electronic equipment. U.S. Publ. No. 2006/0009080 and U.S. Publ No. 2006/0014438 disclose one such surface mount receptacle. Besides the mounting posts on the surface mount receptacle which are used for connector alignment with the PCB, the solder tails when soldered to the PCB often become the only means of securing the surface mount receptacle onto the PCB.
It is a common practice to connect cables to a PCB by terminating the cables to a plug connector (often jointly referred to as cable assembly) and then mating the plug connector to a surface mount receptacle on the PCB. A known problem with connecting a cable assembly to a PCB surface mount receptacle is the tendency for the cable's weight and movement to loosen the points of attachment of the surface mount receptacle to the PCB, thereby breaking signal pathways and causing the connection to the PCB to fail.
Sometimes, in an attempt to minimise the above problem, a large guide frame is used and is mounted to the PCB. However, such guide frames are large and take up valuable space on the PCB that could be used for additional circuits or terminations. In addition, in small, confined spaces as in a miniaturised electronic equipment, it is difficult to provide additional anchorage points for the guide frames without increasing the footprint of the surface mount receptacle.
The present invention is directed at solving the above problems by providing an improved structure for anchoring and holding a connector of the character described to a PCB.